Saturday, 31 December 2011

With 2012 almost upon us, here is a sneak peek of what will be on my painting table in the new year.

This is approx 750pts of Disposable Heroes late war German Grenadiers, consisting of 3 squads of 9 men all including LMGs, a two man sniper team, four man mortar and four man HMG teams and a six man command unit which includes a radio man and a two man LMG team.

Hopefully playing with real Germans instead of Imperial Guard stand ins will increase my chances of actually hitting a barn door, and even more improved once they are painted.

Tuesday, 27 December 2011

The first couple of figures have been done for a while and with Chris very keen to play Disposable Heroes: Point Blank I will to try and get a section (it's what a squad is called in the British Army) finished to try out the rules in the New Year. Hopefully there will be a post showing them completed in a few days time.

Friday, 23 December 2011

It's getting to that time of year when we start thinking about what we have achieved this year and what we may aspire to in the next 12 months. In the past we had the year of more sporting play, this was mostly successful and seems to have now become part of our normal behaviour on Wednesday games night. Which is a good thing. Bickering and outright blow outs have become a rarity, Talisman excepted. We have also had a year of trying new games, some of us <cough> <cough> brought this forward by about 9 months and this has refreshed some of us, me especially, immeasurably.

What have I achieved this year? Less than I set out to that's for sure but my goal of not buying any more armies was modified to anymore Games Workshop armies which I did achieve. I did however buy three Flames of War armies largely due to the 25% temper tantrum discount on FoW products by Maelstrom. I painted one of them had the other two painted for me. I also purchased rules for Waterloo and Kampfgruppe Normandy and Disposable Heroes. I then bought some 28mm WWII figures to try the DH rules, love it but only 4.5 figures are finished.

We also combined Binx's stag do with the annual Blood Bowl Tournament which was a first for some and a boozy spectator sport for others. This year we attended our first historical convention at Colours and enjoyed ourselves to the point of purchasing.

So what should 2012 be flavoured with?

If you know put it in the comments and we can look back next year and see how well we did or not

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

I have finished the Sea Drake from the Dreadfleet box set, I can't say that I enjoyed it much; and I think it shows. There are some untidy bits and I'm not going back to fix them a third time. You can't make me. Yes the sails are on on the wrong way round on the first two masts but I didn't build it...

What next?﻿ Maybe a dwarf hero or two? Perhaps some work on my Warriors of Chaos army. Dip for the Dip God!!

And now to finish the bases on the Lone Wolves Dwarf Army, these little blighters have been finished less the bases for years, no exageration, there has always been something more pressing or intersting to do. We only have about 240 figures; how long can it take?

Saturday, 17 December 2011

Well seeing as Warseer keeps timing out when I try to upload the rest of the pictures, here they are...

The Savage Orcs over run after destroying the Hydra and Ogres

Bloodthirster vs Savage Orcs - The Daemon killed them in 3 rounds

Battle lines ready for action

Giant attack! Everything except the marauders would be gone after 1 round of combat

The whirly fulcrum moves to block the Black Orcs

Depleted Warriors and Marauders just before they defeat the Gobbers and Orcs

Beset on all sides the Chaos Lord and retinue destroy the spears, two champions and rout the trolls. A lucky spin on the wheel of magical death gave them flaming attacks and re-roll wounds. Chance had dictated the Sorcerer Lord being in this unit.

Thursday, 15 December 2011

Well, we played turn 2 and 3 of the big WFB SoM game and its all over.

After wiping out the Orc spell casters it became virtually impossible for the green skins to win, so after 3 bloody turns the game was called as a Chaos and Ogre victory. The carnage on the battlefield reflected how well the Orcs had done in the fight, but with no fulcrum's secured it didnt matter.

Here's a few in game shots, some more can be found over at Warseer via the link in the previous big game post.

Friday, 2 December 2011

We purchased Games Workshops Dreadfleet game and a lot of fun it is, especially if you give every command and read every card in a nautical accent. Unfortunately some aren't good at accents and it all sounds more like farmer Jim than Captain Jack Sparrow.

﻿﻿﻿﻿We decided to buy a case to store the game as the ships are quite delicate and they were just resting in the orginal box. After a bit of research we opted to try the KR Multicase product specifically for the game.

As we do not expect to transport the game very often we chose the cardboard case; it is pretty sturdy and will be perfect for storage. The trays are very nicely cut and the standard of finishing is excellent. No strands of hot glue for example.

There were some delivery issues but contact with the company was good and eventually it appeared at the local sorting office. The offer of a replacement product was not required.

Value for money 9/10
Quality 9/10
Service 10/10

I will be getting some more cases for my Flames of War figures and for both my Games Workshop 40k and WFB armies
﻿

Thursday, 1 December 2011

Lordybloke and I had a second go at the Withdrawal mission, this time he and his Soviets were the attacker and my hardy Panzergrenadiers were defending. In our previous engagement I conceded and left the field to the Russians; I may have been to hasty but that is another story.

I meant to take plenty of pictures and create a great visual spectacle but I got heavily absorbed by the fighting and forgot. So here are a few snaps and a summary of our game.The German deployment included both Infantry platoons and left the Pioneers in half tracks and the unemployable AA trucks in reserve.

The Infantry Platoon deployed far forward give up the possibility of an assault on the Soviet guns on turn 1 and proceed to lead the HMG and Infantry Batalon on a merry chase through the woods
This is the small infantry Batalon

Relocated to a commanding position the German infantry and the Nebelwerfer observer they find amongst the pine harass the Soviets in the valley below.

The large Soviet infantry batalon arrive from reserve and are met by the remaining tiger (other destroyed by 122mm barrage) the Panzergrenadiers and 2 out of the 3 pioneer half tracks (the other bailed by the same barrage). The Russians fire and assault but are thrown back and destroyed in a costly counter attack

Summary: Lordybloke need a reserve roll on turn 6 or lose the game. Both tank units arrived and overwhelmed the remaining defenders. It was close but the initial German counter attack had cost too much and despite destroying and bailing a few of the T70's it wasn't enough. And it was 00:20 so another victory to the reds